Media Effects and Public Opinion

GV917

Mediated and Unmediated Opinions Mediated opinions are those which come

from the mass media rather than personal experience

Unmediated relate to the individual’s personal experience

On the face of it we might expect unmediated attitudes to be more important than mediated attitudes

Mediated and Unmediated Judgements One of Diane Mutz’s key arguments is that

the effects of personal experience predominantly work on personal level judgements (eg ‘What is going to happen to me and my family?’) and mass media effects primarily work on collective level judgements (eg ‘What is going to happen to the country as a whole?’)

How are personal judgements and collective judgements related to each other?

Egocentric judgements about the retrospective performance of the

economy in the 2005 British Election Study Now a few questions about economic conditions.

How does the financial situation of your household now compare with what it was 12 months ago?

(Please take your answers from this card – CARD L) 1 Got a lot worse 2 Got a little worse 3 Stayed the same 4 Got a little better 5 Got a lot better

Egocentric-Retrospective Economic Performance

aq22 Personal Econ Evals-Retro

251 8.5 8.5 8.5712 24.0 24.2 32.7

1288 43.5 43.8 76.5570 19.3 19.4 95.9121 4.1 4.1 100.0

2941 99.4 100.04 .1

14 .518 .6

2959 100.0

1 Got a lot worse2 Got a little worse3 Stayed the same4 Got a little better5 Got a lot betterTotal

Valid

8 Refused9 Don't knowTotal

Missing

Total

Frequency Percent Valid PercentCumulative

Percent

Judgements about the retrospective performance of the sociotropic

economy in the 2005 British Election Study How do you think the general economic situation

in this country has changed over the last 12 months?

(Please take your answers from this card – CARD L) 1 Got a lot worse 2 Got a little worse 3 Stayed the same 4 Got a little better 5 Got a lot better

Sociotropic-Retrospective Economic Performance

aq23 General Econ Evals-Retro

261 8.8 9.0 9.0945 32.0 32.7 41.8

1101 37.2 38.1 79.9540 18.2 18.7 98.640 1.4 1.4 100.0

2888 97.6 100.071 2.4

2959 100.0

1 Got a lot worse2 Got a little worse3 Stayed the same4 Got a little better5 Got a lot betterTotal

Valid

9 Don't knowMissingTotal

Frequency Percent Valid PercentCumulative

Percent

Findings

People tend to be more pessimistic about the national economy than their own economic circumstances – they are a bit more optimistic about themselves than the country

They are more likely to think the national economy will change than their own economic circumstances

They are more likely to say ‘Don’t Know’ when thinking about the national economy

Judgements about the prospective egocentric economic performance How do you think the financial situation of your

household will change over the next 12 months? (Please take your answers from this card – CARD

M) 1 Get a lot worse 2 Get a little worse 3 Stay the same 4 Get a little better 5 Get a lot better

Egocentric Prospective Economic Evaluations

aq24 Personal Econ Expectations

122 4.1 4.2 4.2602 20.3 20.9 25.1

1448 48.9 50.2 75.3630 21.3 21.8 97.184 2.8 2.9 100.0

2886 97.5 100.03 .1

70 2.473 2.5

2959 100.0

1 Get a lot worse2 Get a little worse3 Stay the same4 Get a little better5 Get a lot betterTotal

Valid

8 Refused9 Don't knowTotal

Missing

Total

Frequency Percent Valid PercentCumulative

Percent

Judgements about prospective sociotropic economic performance How do you think the general economic situation

in this country will develop over the next 12 months?

(Please take your answers from this card – CARD M)

1 Get a lot worse 2 Get a little worse 3 Stay the same 4 Get a little better 5 Get a lot better

Sociotropic Prospective Economic Evaluations

aq25 General Econ Expectations

135 4.6 4.8 4.8747 25.2 26.6 31.4

1250 42.3 44.6 76.0638 21.6 22.7 98.834 1.2 1.2 100.0

2804 94.8 100.0155 5.2

2959 100.0

1 Get a lot worse2 Get a little worse3 Stay the same4 Get a little better5 Get a lot betterTotal

Valid

9 Don't knowMissingTotal

Frequency Percent Valid PercentCumulative

Percent

Findings

Respondents are more likely to say Don’t Know when looking to the future than when looking to the past

Again, they are more likely to think that their own prospects will not change in comparison with the national economic prospects

Crosstabs of Egocentric and Sociotropic Evaluationsegocentric retrospective evaluations * sociotropic retrospective evaluations

% within egoretrosp egocentric retrospective evaluations

62.2% 27.5% 10.3% 100.0%34.5% 44.6% 20.9% 100.0%26.1% 41.6% 32.3% 100.0%41.7% 38.2% 20.1% 100.0%

1.00 got worse2.00 same3.00 got better

egoretrosp egocentricretrospective evaluations

Total

1.00 gotworse 2.00 same

3.00 gotbetter

socretrosp sociotropic retrospectiveevaluations

Total

egocentric prospective evaluations * sociotropic prospective evaluations

% within egoprosp egocentric prospective evaluations

60.4% 31.8% 7.9% 100.0%25.6% 54.4% 20.0% 100.0%14.2% 37.8% 48.0% 100.0%31.5% 44.6% 23.8% 100.0%

1.00 get worse2.00 same3.00 get better

egoprosp egocentricprospective evaluations

Total

1.00 getworse 2.00 same

3.00 getbetter

socprosp sociotropic prospectiveevaluations

Total

Relationships between the egocentric and sociotropic measures 48 per cent of the retrospective respondents

were consistent in using the same categories 10 per cent of the retrospective respondents

switched sides from better to worse or vice versa

54 per cent of the prospective respondents were consistent in using the same categories

6 per cent of the prospective respondents switched sides from better to worse or vice versa

How Related Are They?

Further analysis shows that there is a single ‘Economic evaluations’ latent variable underlying these items, so it appears that the egocentric and sociotropic variables are measuring rather similar things

Component Matrixa

.642

.710

.726

.742

aq22 PersonalEcon Evals-Retroaq23 GeneralEcon Evals-Retroaq24 PersonalEcon Expectationsaq25 GeneralEcon Expectations

1

Component

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

1 components extracted.a.

Implications of this Finding

Mediated and unmediated judgements may not be that different from each other after all. Opinions in general appear to be influenced by a mixture of personal experience and mediated effects, although there are some differences between the two.

Can Newspapers influence Voting Behaviour?

Links between Newspaper Readership and Voting There is an association between newspaper

readership and voting behaviour - eg. Daily Telegraph readers are very likely to be Conservative voters and Guardian readers are very likely to be Labour voters

But does this imply that newspapers influence the vote? Or is it that voters buy the newspaper which is aligned with their existing political sympathies?

A case study – the Sun Newspaper in Britain The General Election of 1992 in Britain was

close – Labour thought it could win, but the Conservatives succeeded in winning a small majority of seats in a surprise victory

The Sun Newspaper vociferously supported the Conservatives during the campaign and actually claimed credit for the victory after the election with a famous headline: ‘IT’S THE SUN WOT WON IT’

A case study – the Sun Newspaper in Britain By the time of the 1997 general election the Sun

had changed sides and rather weakly endorsed Labour and Tony Blair in the election

This provides a natural experiment for testing the effects of a newspaper on voting behaviour

The Sun’s endorsement of Labour came rather late on in the election campaign so it is unlikely that people started buying it before the election because they were already Labour voters

If there was a change in the voting behaviour of Sun readers it was more likely caused by the paper’s endorsement of Labour

A Complication

The whole country shifted towards voting Labour in 1997, so we would expect Sun readers to shift in the same direction for reasons unrelated to their reading the newspaper.

The Daily Mirror and the Sun have a very similar readership profile – they are tabloid papers which appeal to working class and less educated people in Britain

The Mirror endorsed Labour both in 1992 and 1997

The Quasi-Experiment

If the Sun and Mirror readers are very similar to each other in their social profiles then we might expect them to vote in a similar way – subject to some variations.

However, they differ in one key respect – the Sun switched between 1992 and 1997 but the Mirror remained pro-Labour throughout

So if Sun readers were more likely to swing to Labour in 1997 than Mirror readers this suggests that the paper’s endorsement influenced their readers voting behaviour

Sun Readers Voting Behaviour 1992-1997

1992 Vote 1997 Vote Change

Conservative 39 23 -16

Labour 30 38 +8

Liberal Democrat 12 9 -3

Didn’t Vote

20 31 -11

Daily Mirror Reader’s Voting Behaviour 1992-1997

1992 Vote 1997 Vote Change

Conservative 14 6 -8

Labour 63 71 +8

Liberal Democrat 10 8 -2

Didn’t Vote

12 16 +4

Conclusions

The Labour vote went up by 8 per cent for Sun readers and Daily Mirror readers

The Conservative Vote fell by twice as much (-16 per cent) for Sun readers than for Daily Mirror readers (-8)

The Change in the Liberal Democrat vote share was about the same for both newspapers

But the per cent who did not vote increased by almost three times as much for Sun readers (11 per cent) as it did for the Daily Mirror readers (4 per cent)

It appears that the Sun’s endorsement for Labour encouraged many Conservatives not to vote, but it didn’t actually increase the Labour vote.